Not Your Forte
by Yellowtail555
Summary: "you pretend you never fell in love with an auburn-haired, beautiful girl with a problem for attention and a love for other girls and for you, especially, and who loved to smoke and curse and sometimes simultaneously." / Molly after Rose's death and how she comes to terms with her loss.


You realize, with a jolt, that maybe it's just a bit too late for fantasies. Maybe you need to stop pretending everything's going to work out and accept the fact that it never, ever will.

After all, daydreaming's not even your forte.

You leave your sister to her imagination and you go off and study and ace those OWLs and get Head Girl with no competition and you wonder for half a second why you're wasting your life like this. But your father's proud and your mother knows less than nothing about how to be a proper witch (being a Muggle does that to people) and you're way too old for any of Lucy's games, anyway.

There's a four year age gap and its never felt more prominent than when you're on patrol or leading a prefect meeting and she's still running around with her almost boyfriend, your cousin, and talking about Muggle movies a mile a minute.

You two have nothing in common… except for both falling for a Weasley.

But her and Hugo are so happy and they're too young to see the consequences and you think it might almost work out for them because they're _not_ a tragic love story- they are the sort of story that involves running through meadows and sitting by the lake and barely even kissing and they leave the sob stories for you.

Because you and Rose… you're nothing if not tragic.

You think it's kind of almost funny, how you and your sister both fell for the Granger-Weasleys. _Hilarious, right?_

Hardly. That's why you're sitting here, in the kitchen of the Burrow, alone- because Rose died and your cousins are tip-toeing around you and funny has lost all meaning.

It was Lucy who told you. You thought she was joking, thought that maybe she wanted to just be special, the only one in your family to date her _cousin_, butLucy was not that cruel.

It was Hugo who found her. Rose. You half wish it had been you but after seeing what it did to Hugo… well, if your family is tip-toeing around you, then they're flat out avoiding Hugo.

You two are nothing if not a tragic love story but you're a _love_ story and that almost makes it better. As if. You'd laugh at the thought if you thought that you still knew how to.

It was all your fault. That Rose threw herself off the Astronomy Tower. Because you loved her and it wasn't enough. Because she said that no one loved her and fuck it all, _you_ did. But you didn't show her enough, apparently, because she still killed herself and maybe screwing around means less for her than it does for you.

Maybe you two would never make it as a love movie. You're just a bit too R-rated for the cinema. Because Rose swears like high heaven and if you two aren't fucking, you're sitting around the dormitories and Rose is smoking and you're politely refusing for the umpteenth time. You always tried to tell her you were quitting but you never did succeed because Rose was just so beautiful with a cigarette between her lips. You've quit now, though. Went cold turkey after what happened. You'd like to blame how you feel now on that.

There's nothing even to document what was. You regret going through those muggle cameras that Lucy leant you and deleting all the pictures of Rose. But how were you to know that Aunt Hermione's only coping technique was to empty out everything 'Rose' from her house and convert the bedroom into a guest room. The only thing you have left is one of Rose's old bras which she left in your dormitory one night. You kept saying you were going to give it back to her but you never did.

And the truth of the matter is that you knew that you two would always be a sob story because you're cousins and you never thought it would work out like Hugo and Lucy believe but you thought it might last a bit longer than that. You thought it might not end so tragically. Even sad stories deserve a good run.

It's a bit too late for regrets. And it's way too late for fantasies.

You know that one day, it could be tomorrow and it could be in a few years, you're going to have to find a nice wizard (never mind the fact that you're gay) and settle down with him.

Your family knows that you and Rose were close, that you were friends, but that they can't ever know that you're a lesbian. And it's not because they're wouldn't accept you- it's because then they might know the truth about you and Rose and they can't find that out.

If they knew, then they're pity you and you don't want that.

And there, at the kitchen table in the Burrow, you realize that you have to forget Rose. Maybe you're a bit like Aunt Hermione in that way- you can only move on by pretending she was never there in the first place.

It's not easy. It's two months later and she's been dead for six months now and it's hard to forget someone when some nights in your dormitory, you can still smell her perfume and when you sleep, you dream about her.

The dreams are so real that you think they might be memories and Rose is always lying next to you, her breasts pressed against your back and that's why you can't quite forget her.

You're going to graduate in a month and so you dive into your studies, NEWTs are only a week away after all, and you pretend you never fell in love with an auburn-haired, beautiful girl with a problem for attention and a love for other girls and for you, especially, and who loved to smoke and curse and sometimes simultaneously. You pretend that she meant nothing, even though she's Rose and that means she'll always mean something to you.


End file.
